Tag Archives: Furness

Zach Furness has written a lot about bicycles and politics. In this article, published in the journal Social Epistemology, he discusses a couple of historical examples of bicycle-related activism.

A key idea is that a common technology (the bicycle) can be used for multiple purposes. For example, it can be used for transportation, for fitness, for fun — and it can be used to critique our society, and perhaps as a way of imagining a better world.

For Furness, a key part of using technology in activism is communication. This kind of communication has at least two key parts:

communication with “outside” audiences– the people the activists seek to influence

communication among activists or within groups — participation in movements can create social bonds and “conviviality”